Pastplay: Teaching and Learning History with Technology

Afterword

Kevin Kee

In the introduction to this volume, we asked: “how might we playfully use technology to teach and learn history?” To explore possible answers was the goal of the small conference from which this book emerged. It brought together, as the preceding pages show, academic historians, public historians, digital humanists, undergraduate and graduate students, and teachers. Despite the diversity of our occupations and skills, everyone mixed freely. While the level of computational expertise at the conference was high, the gathering included people on a spectrum of proficiency, from dedicated hackers to those who rely on off-the-shelf tools.

Play was more than the subject because we also played with the conference format. No expert was called on to deliver a plenary address. In fact, the program was only roughly sketched out beforehand. Following an approach pioneered in “unconferences,” and now well established in regular events such as THATCamps,¹ our first hour was occupied with identifying topics that we wanted to address, individuals with expertise on those subjects, and then a schedule that would support these various subgroup meetings. In addition, we set up a video camera “confessional” where we were asked to answer the question: “in the context of using technology in the teaching and learning of history, what would you do if you had no limitations?” We recorded the proceedings with photographs as much as text. In addition to a large meeting space, we set up a “toys room,” where we could work with a variety of objects, instruments, and environments. During the first day of the symposium, we “played” in groups large and small with technologies from recipe cards to the 3D printers (on this book’s cover). During the second day, we reviewed our articles about how to best play with the past. No presentations were allowed; authors were instead required to listen to the comments and discussion of their colleagues, and speak only in response.

Over the course of two days, and as this volume attests, a thesis emerged about how and why we should play with technology in history. What had started as a meeting of academics and teachers, tasked only with writing about that which most excited them, ended with a cogent argument. Why should we play with technology in history? Because doing so enables us to see the past in new ways, by helping us understand how history is created, honoring the roots of research, teaching, and technology development, requiring us to model our thoughts, and then enabling us to build our understanding.

Not incidentally, this approach to technology will also open up history to a wider audience. This was an unstated, though overarching goal of the meeting, and an aspiration for the book. What we hope to support, not just among a small group of dedicated enthusiasts, but across the discipline of history, and the humanities broadly, is “community, relationship, and play.” As we reflect on the potential and challenges of incorporating technology into history, we look with expectation to the emergence of innovative, imaginative, engaging ways to communicate the past. Each day new projects are announced that help us to map the past, read and visualize its evidence, and hear its stories. Conversations about history, as demonstrated in this book, must be continual and dynamic. The pace of technology is relentless. The potential for new ideas and insights is unlimited. We do not worry about missing our audience, as I related in the opening pages of this book, because we are all in this sandbox together.

NOTES

1. Founded in 2008 by the Center for History and New Media (now the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media) at George Mason University, a THATCamp, according to the website, “is an open, inexpensive meeting where humanists and technologists of all skill levels learn and build together in sessions proposed on the spot.” In the year 2013, THATCamps will be held across the United States and Canada as well as locations as disparate as Wellington, New Zealand; Panama; and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. In 2013 THATCamps were held across the United States and Canada as well as locations as disparate as Buenos Aires, Argentina; Ghent, Belgium; and Wellington, New Zealand. Accessed November 4, 2013, http://thatcamp.org/camps/?region=all&date=2013&s=&groups_search_submit=Search.